Modern Cosmology and the Dark Matter Problem (Cambridge Lecture Notes in Physics) [Paperback]

D. W. Sciama (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 27, 1994 | ISBN-10: 0521438489 | ISBN-13: 978-0521438483

This book shows how modern cosmology and astronomy have led to the need to introduce dark matter in the universe to account for mass. Some of this dark matter is in the familiar form of protons, electrons and neutrons, but most of it must have a more exotic form. The favored, but not the only, possibility is neutrinos of non-zero rest mass, pair-created in the hot big bang and surviving to the present day. After a review of modern cosmology, this book gives a detailed account of the author's recent theory in which these neutrinos decay into photons that are the main ionizing agents in hydrogen and nitrogen in the interstellar and intergalactic medium. This theory, though speculative, explains a number of rather different puzzling phenomena in astronomy and cosmology in a unified way and predicts values of various important quantities such as the mass of the decaying neutrino and the Hubble constant.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Sciama presents lucid explanations of cosmology and the dark matter problem in general, worth reading for their clear distillations of complicated observational facts....an excellent survey of the subject of cosmic and galactic ionization, at a level of detail not found in cosmology texts." Science

"...The book is the epitome of clarity, and it will also make students think." David Hughes, New Scientist

"Although Sciama's neutrino scenario has been circulating in the cosmological community for several years, it was divided among many separate papers and until now was not all available in one place. Furthermore, for the nonspecialist, the book introduces and explains modern cosmology and the nature of dark matter problems themselves rather well. It is definitely a useful addition to the cosmological literature." David N. Schramm, Physics Today

Book Description

The author's theory, though speculative, explains a number of rather different puzzling phenomena, in showing how the need to introduce dark matter in the universe has developed, mostly in the form of neutrinos created in the hot big bang and surviving to the present day.

Product Details

• Paperback: 244 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (May 27, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521438489
• ISBN-13: 978-0521438483
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,175,379 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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